Today's page came a little late due to the untimely passing of my tablet's stylus. To give the little thing credit, it's been a soldier, my stylus.

Now, I hear a lot of talk about new-fangled tablets with their lights and whistles and so on, but what I also hear a lot of is people talking about their tablets being in a constant state of broken.

Well, I've been using a Wacom Graphire for five years now, and this is the first problem I've had with it, despite just a shitass ton of times that I've dropped, busted open and straight up dropped the thing in water.

That's five years I've been able to rely on my handy little jalopy of a tablet, which would still be going had I not lost the war with gravity. So Wacom, I raise a glass to you for my Graphire. Bells and whistles don't mean a thing if the thing doesn't work.posted by Gibson Twist @ September 7th, 2011, 2:25 am | 7 comments

R.I.P. Gibson's stylus. You'll forever be in our hearts as you made beautiful pages in your day. May you draw wonderful drawings in Stylus Heaven. Who knows? You'll probably see my first tablet pen up there too.. my poor little Wacom Graphire Sapphire special edition stylus.. he was so young..

Maybe it can be saved?If it's just the stylus that's the problem and you have no issues with the rest of the tablet, your best (cheapest) bet might be to go hunting for a replacement stylus on ebay or craigslist. I'd have done the same if it hadn't been the tablet itself that stopped working.

We tried that for my old tablet but it was too much of a struggle.. SO.. I got a Bamboo instead. Gotta say, Bamboo might be one of the cheapest tablets around but it's also one of the best. Literally. There's some buttons on it that let you do just about everything. Scroll up, scroll down, increase view, decrease view, page changer, etc etc. And that's just on the tablet itself! As for the pen, it's like everything else. The Bamboo tablet's about $70 online (least.. around the time I got it. It was probably on sale..) and it comes with Corel Paint and Photoshop Elements.. though.. I think every tablet comes with those programs.

bamboo or intuosHey Gibson, just giving a shout out for a fallen graphire, my little monster lasted for four years in a tattoo shop. where random fluids and everything else under a rainbow had been. it was dropped, kicked and skittered.

When it passed i went to an intuos, but much love for the bamboo as well. stick with wacom, they do tablets good!

Am using the wife's Intuos for the time being, but will most likely be replacing the stylus rather than the whole tablet. With the amount of times I've dropped the thing over the years, I've always been sure to know that replacement stylus' were available.

I think I will place the old soldier in my pen cup in honour of its many years of dutiful service.

I love the graphire series. I've had mine for a long time now and the only complaint I have is the stylus is literally decaying on me, and the mouse wheel no longer works. Other than that it works wonderfully.